Book review 'For Love and Honour': The battle of the sexes on a tea estate
In case the title isn’t indication enough, this is a book about the big themes. For Love and Honour opens with soldiers of the 3rd Batallion celebrating India’s win at the 1983 cricket World Cup.
They are in a deserted airfield in Mizoram and are interrupted mid-way through their celebrations — they have to rush into a counter-insurgency operation. Major Rahul Schimer and Captain Akhil Mehra get into a tense confrontation with suspected terrorists and they come away from the incident with Captain Mehra losing an arm and Major Schimer losing a childhood friend.
Mehra is given an honourable dispatch from the Army. Rather than spending his life doing administrative tasks, he considers it as a second lease of life. He goes to a prosperous tea estate in Haflong, Assam, to be its security manager. Schimer, on the other hand, turns down the medal he is offered by the Army as he suffers from guilt and regret at having been instrumental in the death of his friend. More than the scenes with the Army in action, it is the series of flashbacks of Schimer’s childhood in the battle-hardened streets of Aizawl that paint the picture of the complex relationship India has with its north-eastern states. Schimer’s friend was his saviour-turned-antagonist, and they’ve both grown up amidst graffiti such as, “Indian Army Go Home”, a message, even to children, of the perpetrations of the past and present.
Schimer is unable to live with himself, role he played in the death of his friend, and his life now is on the path of seeking redemption. Mehra, meanwhile, whose act of “bravery” even in the field seemed a little ill-conceived and put lives at risk, proves himself to be something of a patsy and little prepared to take on the moral complexities he finds himself embroiled in at the tea estate.
Anand Ranganathan creates an eeire little set piece in the scenes at the genteel Carlington tea estate, reminiscent in some ways of the comedy of manners one finds in a Jane Austen novel. Little wonder that there are several references to Jane Austen. Despite the dramatic opening, the meat of the story lies in the life Mehra carves out for himself with the estate owner, an affable, cultivated man named Rai Bahadur Sen, and his intriguing daughters, Indrani and Ipsita.
Mehra first sees them, having heard much about them, at a ball, in a scene that seems straight out of a period novel:
They were beautiful, he thought. He could not take his eyes away from them. The crowd had as though melted, with only him and the two girls in the hall… The two women weren’t looking at each other while they conversed but rather a little down, at each other’s lap. He could see their lips moving constantly. The next moment, both women tilted their heads up and looked straight at him. It wasn’t a casual getting-to-know-you glance but deliberate, with purpose. He felt they knew all along that he had been eyeing only them: they had decided to shift their eyes away for a few minutes, only to train them back on him snappishly. It looked too concerted to be sudden.
For a time, it seems like the two sisters might be interchangeable with their witty repartees, fondness and provocatively bold interest in Mehra. However, Ranganathan does well by making them distinct personalities soon enough.
The privileged life that comes with owning a tea estate like Carlington’s exerts its own charm: the staidness and comfort of routine, the impeccable service and timing of every meal and teatime. There is also a curt caretaker-assistant, Chawngthu Norden, who functions like a butler at times and whose ferocious loyalty to the family and defensive position against Mehra is nicely maintained till the conclusion. The girls live the lives of well-brought-up ladies from the Victorian age, dividing their time between charity work like teaching the local children and cultivating the arts. They are obviously raised a notch above Mehra who misses most of their literary references and jokes. Invited to join the young ladies at breakfast, despite Norden’s obvious disapproval, Mehra sees the “suave figure of Rai Bahadur emerge from the villa and walk towards the waiting Ambassador”. He remarks, “Sorry to interrupt your noble efforts to educate me, ladies… but where’s your father off to this early in the morning?’ Indrani scoffs, “It’s eight and, someone’s got to work so we can read our Emma and Camus in peace.”
There are indications that there’s a love triangle in the offing and For Love and Honour keeps its promise. Mehra, once more, displays his tendency to act first and think later, and muddies the water between the sisters. All too soon he, Ipsita and Indrani have to find a way to be happy even when there is no easy compromise. Having introduced two major directions in the novel, Ranganathan then brings in a third, with the action-turned-comedy of manners turning into a chilling, macabre murder mystery. Major Schimer comes close to being reunited with Mehra in a strange twist of fate that deals them both losing cards. The backdrop of insurgency in the Northeast fades away and what remains centrestage is the battle of the sexes where love takes no prisoners and honour knows no bounds.
Karishma Attari is the author of I See You, a horror novel published by Penguin Books. Her twitter handle is @KarishmaWrites
